


Parts to Play

by revolutionator



Category: BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, the gang puts on utena as a school play
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 00:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17591696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionator/pseuds/revolutionator
Summary: Maya is given a very nasty surprise by the other members of the theatre club, but being Maya, she powers through it.





	1. a proposal

The girls at the school knew Maya, and they were fond of her. They knew she was part of theater club, and more important than that they knew how important stage hands were when making sure the play was performed as best as it could be, so girls would stop out of their way to thank her after a successful show. Between that and all this recent idol work with Pastel*Palettes, Maya was used to getting congratulated on a job well done as she went from class to class. It was embarrassing, sure, but it was normal and expected.

The thing was, though, that it usually happened after she’d done something. Like, after she’d had a performance. Or a concert. Or something where she’d been involved. But today people were congratulating her several months before their new production had even started rehearsal; heck, they were congratulating her on the very day the roles got given out! Which was very strange, indeed.

As Maya passed a pair of first-years (“Way to go, Yamato-senpai!”) she thought deeper. Was anything different about this new performance? She was doing lights and gopher work like usual, but had she done anything else? Accepted any other roles? She’d offered to understudy, but she always did that, and it never ended up being necessary. Haneoka’s theater club were hardy, resilient girls who never took sick days – and when they did, it was on any day except one with a performance.

Still, bizarre congratulations aside: what an exciting performance it was bound to be! She’d loved _La Filette Revolutionnaire_ since she was too young to understand it. The swooping costumes, the noble regalia, the melodrama between the two female leads. There were several roles that seemed hand-crafted for Kaoru Seta, and of course she’d dithered between them like a child in a sweet-shop before announcing she would try out for Archimedios, the villain. This was paramount to announcing she’d been cast.

More excitingly, she’d used her connections again to secure Chisato Shirasagi to play her foil, Archimedios’ younger sister Althea. Students of both schools were invited to watch the production, and Maya had heard rumor that a film crew might even be involved…Daunting, but exciting, too! The kind of thing that just really made you want to do your best, to make sure everything went off smoothly and without a hitch…

“Maya!”

Speaking of Kaoru, there she was.

“My darling,” Kaoru announced, her teeth gleaming white, her skin flawless, her arm arranged at a jaunty right angle to her hip. “My deepest congratulations. They couldn’t have picked a finer lady for the role. I say this, of course, as someone who had no part in the process – though how excited I am at this opportunity, fleeting though it may be, to corrupt you onstage, to weave my sinister magic and impede your optimism-“

“Kaoru-san,” Maya greeted her, pointedly. “I don’t know what on Earth you’re talking about, because the lights and sound are going to be on top form this year, with no corruption, thank you very much.”

“My sweet, perfectly steamed dumpling,” Kaoru said, leaning in closer. Her eyebrows were slightly raised. “Have you yet to look at the casting announcement?”

Maya laughed, properly, the sort of laugh that got caught in her nose and made her splutter. “Dumpling? That’s a new one. And no, I only just got done with cleaning the equipment…Why?”

Kaoru’s eyes travelled past Maya’s shoulder. Maya at this point was still feeling in high spirits, slightly put out by Kaoru’s stranger-than-usual behaviour but not worried by it, confused by all this undue praise and adulation from her classmates but none too bothered about the cause. This all changed in the couple of seconds when she turned around and faced the wall, and came face to face with her own theater club headshot staring straight back at her.

“Wh,” she said, and then, “What…?”

It took a moment for her eyes to process everything around the photograph. It was next to Kaoru’s and Chisato’s photographs. Actually, it was above Kaoru’s and Chisato’s, because it was the first one on the poster. It was headlined with beautiful calligraphy that read “INTRODUCING…” and captioned with her own name.

>   
>  ~
> 
> _Haneoka Girls’ College Theater Club proudly presents_
> 
> _End-of-Year Extravaganza_
> 
> **“La Filette Revolutionnaire”**
> 
> INTRODUCING:
> 
> **Maya Yamato** as _Ursula Tarantelle_
> 
> STARRING:
> 
> **Seta Kaoru** as _Archimedios Orwell_
> 
> _Guest Star courtesy of Hanasakigawa High School_
> 
> **Chisato Shirasagi** as _Althea Hinterland_
> 
> CAST & CREW:
> 
> _Shadow Chorus:_ Shiori Watabe, Lisa Imai, Ami Takemura
> 
> _Wanda :_ Nami Tsuda
> 
> _Michael and Karol_ : Hina Hikawa
> 
> _Simon:_ Tomoe Udagawa
> 
> _Thomas:_ Yukina Minato
> 
> _Anna-Marie:_ Ako Udagawa
> 
> _Juliette:_ Haruna Tabuchi
> 
> _Carolyn Orwell:_ Himari Uehara
> 
> _Guest Costuming by_ Rinko Shirokane _courtesy of Hanesakigawa High School_
> 
> _Lights and Staging by_ Keiko Kogane, Runa Tsukiyome, Mai Nekozawa. _Assistance from_ Eve Wakamiya _and_ Aya Maruyama _courtesy of Hanesakigawa High School_
> 
>  ~

Maya continued to stare dumbly at the poster until the words swam into soup. Her photograph? Her name? Ursula Tarantelle was the leading role. The most important character in the play. Hadn’t they held auditions for her? Hadn’t she been there?

Her blood running cold, she remembered that in fact she had decidedly not been there, because she had been at the Archimedios auditions instead. Come to think of it, had they even scheduled auditions for Ursula? She couldn’t remember. She’d been so busy. That’s it! She was busy! She was far too busy! And she couldn’t act. She didn’t want to act!

Maya realized she had been making a low, long groaning noise for the entirety of the time she’d been standing and staring at the poster, and Kaoru was starting to look a bit alarmed. She stopped at once and jabbed her finger at the poster instead.

“No way. Absolutely not.”

“But my kitten, you have already been cast.”

“Then I renounce the role?! I don’t want to be Ursula! She’s the main role! I didn’t even audition!” Maya realized she was dangerously close to stamping her foot at Kaoru in a crowded hallway, which was bound to have bad repercussions, but was beyond caring. “Kaoru-san, were you behind this?!”

Kaoru had brought her hands up as though defending herself from a powerful approaching enemy, and when she took a step backwards – slightly closer to the hall lamp – Maya could see there was a sheen of sweat on her pretty face.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it was just me…”

“But _why_? And why didn’t you ask?”

“That, I can answer.” Kaoru stood up tall again. “You would have refused.”

“I am refusing.”

“Maya, listen to me. I and the other girls talked it out thoroughly and we want you to play Ursula. She is resourceful, quick-witted, down-to-Earth. You are a perfect fit.”

Maya forced herself to calm down, which was no mean feat. There were girls staring now, as they were prone to do whenever Kaoru was around in general but were especially likely to do when someone was yelling at her. She managed, through some Herculean effort, to smile and adjust her gasses and dust down her skirt, and doing all of those little actions helped her to fight back the rising tide of panic.

“Is that why they had me read through her introduction scene?”

Kaoru nodded.

“And…This means I’m not going to be on stage duty.”

“Why, of course not,” said Kaoru, “because you will be on stage.”

Maya took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her glasses had worn a little groove there, and focusing on rubbing away that ache made it easier to pretend that the bigger ache plaguing her head might go away as easily.

“I’ll have to play the main role,” she said in a tone of numb horror, “opposite you, in a role where you’re…the bad guy. In a play where it’s really, really important for the audience to root for me.”

Kaoru’s face faltered for the first time, but she immediately swept her hand in a dramatic arc to cover it. When she was done flourishing, he confident smile was back in place, as sure as if it had never left.

“Maya, I will be here as your willing stage servant and tutor for every rehearsal, every script reading. I shall become like Archimedios himself, taking you under my wing, helping you grow…”

“He’s the villain who sabotages her,” Maya said, but she was starting to smile in spite of herself.

“Hence why I used ‘like’, as it was a simile! Archimedios is a character, a role. I am Kaoru Seta, your dear and devoted colleague, and I will not let this performance fail.”

Maya let out such a long sigh that it felt that maybe part of her soul might have slipped out with it. She took another glance at the poster and felt a cold, dreadful chill run up her spine. What were the other girls in the club thinking? Sure, she would do cold readings now and then, and she helped the other girls when they were practicing their lines, and it wasn’t like she _couldn’t_ act… In fact, ever since joining Pastel*Palettes she’d had to get better at it by necessity.

“I’ll do it,” Maya said, “but under one, very important condition! And this is an extra condition, on top of you tutoring me. I still need you to tutor me.”

“Anything, anything at all that your heart desires, my perfect foam kitten, my ephemeral—”

“Never,” Maya said in the most intimidating voice she could muster, “ever surprise me like this ever again.”

Kaoru’s laugh was very musical as she took Maya’s shoulder, guiding her oh-so-smoothly towards the rehearsal room. “But of course, my dear. That was a given.”


	2. a rehearsal

 

> ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** oh yes  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** I knew  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** what!!!!  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** and you didn’t tell me????  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** she was very adamant I not tell you  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** I told her you would react poorly but alas  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** well……i mean i guess i could’ve reacted worse  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!!!   
>  **Aya Maruyama:** I don’t know what you’re so worried for though????  
>  **Aya Maruyama:** You’re wonderful at everything you try your hand at!  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** hmm…  
>  **Aya Maruyama:** >:(  
>  **Aya Maruyama:** Anyway I am really excited to watch you and Hina and Sayo perform, Maya-chan!   
>  **hi7** : AYA  
>  **hi7:** OMG!!!!! XD  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** ??? Sayo-san???  
>  **hi7** : GJ GJ THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE… A SECRET…   
>  **hi7:** DO U KNOW… HOW SECRETS WORK… AYA-CHAN…  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** it is a terribly kept secret if most of the theater club already knows about it  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** i didn’t????  
>  **~TRAIN~AND~FIGHT~:** do not worry Maya! I did not know either!  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** you don’t go to this school eve!!!!  
>  **~TRAIN~AND~FIGHT~:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** anyway I do hope that Kaoru is holding up her end of the bargain  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** she did say she would tutor you to me  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** oh yes

Maya paused, holding the phone over her head. They had certainly practiced together all right. Cold readings at first, just the two of them, and then attempts to get into character – Kaoru suggested they try different characters first, then play each other’s role, and then finally play their castings, and it had been rather good advice.

But Maya still felt stiff. Unnatural. She heard her own voice echo in her head with every line.

“Let’s take a break,” Kaoru said. She flopped down in a chair across from her, stretching her arms over her head and giving a little yawn. “I am _quelle tired_.”

Maya did not understand French, poorly spoken or otherwise, so she just nodded and smiled.

“I’m not very good,” she said, trying to make it sound light, airy and unbothered. Her voice quavered as she spoke. She immediately searched for something to look at that was not Kaoru and settled on the script in front of her. “I can’t get…I can’t get her right.”

She was very deliberate in looking at the script instead of Kaoru. Kaoru, for her part, stayed where she was. Maya heard her rock back and forth on the cheap metal legs of her folding chair.

“Maya, this is your first audition,” Kaoru said very gently.

“Yes, but, if everyone thinks I would be good as her…And I’m not…”

“Page 76,” Kaoru said.

Maya, whose throat was beginning to feel slimy and too-tight while her eyes were growing hot and red and heavy, didn’t understand her at first. “Excuse me.”

“Page 76! Second line. Read.”

Maya was startled enough to flip to the page in question, and to read, in her lilting, traitorously shaky voice: “But Althea is counting on me so…”

The metal legs of Kaoru’s chair scraped across the floor. In seconds, her long shadow was cast over Maya’s face, her hand on the back of Maya’s own cheap folding chair. Her entire stance had changed. Gone was the affable smile and the dramatic, flaring fingertips; instead her knuckles were white where they were clenched on the chair back, and her mouth was pressed in a thin line.

“And you do such a fine job,” she said in a low and dangerous voice, “of protecting her.”

Maya’s heart flipped in her chest, in spite of herself. It was really impressive how Kaoru could flip a switch and become another person entirely…She wouldn’t say she envied it, because Maya Yamato was a nice person to be all things considered, but it was a powerful skill. She respected it. Oh, but she had a role to play. She glanced at the script, then back up.

“Are you threatening me,” she asked, softly, too wet. She could see she’d missed the tone a second after she’d said it. She tried again. “Are you…threatening me?”

Kaoru looked fiercely delighted behind the cold eyes of her character. “Warning you, Ms. Tarantelle,” she said simply.

Then she patted Maya’s cheek, back to normal.

“That was excellent,” she had said.

Maya thought about how it felt to have Kaoru Seta compliment her on her acting prowess and was immediately brought back to her senses, back to her present time, by her phone screen thunking her right in the face. She scrambled to pick it up.

> ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** shes  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** a fool.  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** but she keeps her word, so, im sure you will be fine maya  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** hee hee…  
>  **YAMAHAMAYA:** okay  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** I am excited to play across from you   
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** my dear Ursula.  
>  ***⑅*❀⑅*❀chx❀⑅*❀⑅*:** ♥.

Oh, God.


	3. a problem

“Somehow in all the fuss,” Maya said quietly to Kaoru, “I forgot that Chisato was playing my love interest.”

Kaoru looked at her, smiling a perfectly kind and understanding smile. The two of them were paired together, this time in the regular theater club hours; Chisato herself would not be attending practice with them for another week, which Maya thought was both a blessing and a curse.

“Are you worried?” Kaoru closed her script. “You needn’t be. Why, you probably know her current self better even than I-“

“She’s like, a really good actress,” Maya broke in before Kaoru could get warmed up, “and she’s…you know, professional? She’s professional about everything, and I know it’s because she works so hard, and I don’t want to make her feel like…I see her as intimidating…”

“Oh, but I do think she likes to come across that way,” said Kaoru. Maya nearly dropped her own script in surprise. “Don’t be so shocked! There is a reason I requested her for Althea, too.”

“Kaoru-san,” Maya said in a very serious voice, “did you orchestrate the entire cast list?”

“Just three parts,” Kaoru said, and winked winningly.

“You’re lucky everyone at this school likes you,” Maya muttered. She flipped through the script again. “Can we do the bedside scene again?”

Yet again they re-entered their roles. Ursula was starting to feel more familiar; the way she urgently scrambled to make sense of nonsensical situations, her burning desire to help. Maya couldn’t say it aloud – not with all the fight she’d put up at the beginning – but she was kind of relieved that if she had to act as anyone, it was as someone who made so much sense to her.

Kaoru, on the other hand, was about as far removed from her regular personality as it was possible to be. She radiated unctuous, oily charm, alternating effortlessly between the charming persona Archimedios affected in the beginning act and the blatant, horrific cruelty of the final acts. Thankfully they didn’t practice too many of those at this early stage. Althea would be necessary for those. Chisato.

“Break for ten minutes,” called the head of the club. Kaoru collapsed into one of the chairs, sweaty and spent. Maya fetched her a bottle of cold water from the cooler.

They sat in silence for a while. Maya flicked through her script, but without any real conviction. She was well on her way to memorizing the early acts, which actually wasn’t unusual for her, or indeed for the stage-hands at large. It always helped to know when your cue was imminent.

After taking several deep gulps of water Kaoru looked across at Maya and smiled one of those perplexing smiles again. “Does it bother you that you have to act across from Chisato? Surely it isn’t that hard to imagine being in love with her.”

“ _Um_ ,” Maya said on reflex. She felt her cheeks immediately rush with blood, which was infuriating, and would make it even easier for Kaoru to get the wrong idea. Worse still was the fact she couldn’t think how to articulate what the real problem was with acting across from Chisato, and in that particular role.

Maya herself liked Chisato deeply, respected her endlessly, owed her very position in a band she loved to her, but also…Chisato was an enigma. Skilled and tenacious to a level Maya just couldn’t visualize for herself, and with a web of strange relationships connected around her…Including her relationship with Kaoru, which seemed as impenetrable as Ancient Greek. They did like each other, didn’t they? Maybe even more, which might have been what Kaoru was alluding to with that strange comment. But then, why had Kaoru been so eager to play Archimedios? And to cast Chisato and Maya against each other? If you read into it too hard, Kaoru didn’t come out looking great.

“Do _you_ love her?” Maya asked instead, which she immediately regretted. She put her hand on her mouth and thanked every higher power that the club room was busy enough for her question to go ignored by everyone else.

Kaoru didn’t look phased at all. “Oh, of course. Though not like that, not anymore.”

“Oh,” said Maya. This didn’t make anything less awkward.

“She’s very talented,” Kaoru continued. “And very driven, and a perfect fit for Althea…But sometimes, Chisato can struggle with herself. I wanted to give her an opportunity to grow.”

“Where you could see it?”

“Yes, well, er…” Kaoru blushed alarmingly and drank more of her water. “Our growth is interlinked in many ways.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So if you don’t find it difficult to perform love towards her, what is the problem, my dear? Stage fright?”

Maya cradled her own bottle in her hands. She rolled it to and fro until the bottle crinkled under the pressure of her palms. It was deliciously cold.

“I’m scared,” she admitted finally, “that she’ll think I’m not very good. And that she’ll never tell me…”

Kaoru laughed. Maya felt the blush rush back to her face, all at once, but Kaoru’s laugh was infectious and soon she was hooting too.

“She will tell me,” Maya said, still hiccupping with giggles. “It’ll be MEGA obvious.”

“Yes,” Kaoru said. “Anyway, you have very little to worry about, because you are improving rapidly. You are a perfect Ursula.”

She leant forward and put her bottle-cold hand on Maya’s knee, blotting it with dark condensation finger prints. Her face was very open and kind. Maya thought once more how unlike her character she was, and how like Ursula she was, and how like Althea Chisato allegedly was.

“Is it alright to say you’re an almost perfect Archimedios?”

Kaoru’s grin widened. “But of course! Perfection is a falsehood in itself, and one must always have the room to progress…”

Maya thought about it. That sounded pretty in Kaoru’s clear, confident voice, but she wasn’t sure she agreed with it. It sounded to her quite nice to be perfect, or at least as perfect as Kaoru and Chisato were.


End file.
